


exorcise the demons from your mind

by adruggedcuppa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comfort, Could Be Destiel, Family, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, S09, Self-Doubt, human!Cas, if you're optimistic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:50:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1390057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adruggedcuppa/pseuds/adruggedcuppa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because if he’d learned anything, it was that you couldn’t just be a Winchester; you had to earn the title. And despite the good he’d done in the past, the weight of the bad was far too overwhelming to ignore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	exorcise the demons from your mind

**Author's Note:**

> This was based off of a prompt someone sent to me on my writing blog (adruggedcuppa.tumblr.com) for human!cas doubting his worth to the Winchesters and Dean comforting him. Enjoy~
> 
> mainblog - teacupofdestruction.tumblr.com
> 
> Title is from "Self Doubt" - NEUROSIS
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own shit.

For all of his years observing humanity, Castiel still couldn’t say that he’d mastered the art of being human. It was small things, most days. Clicking the wrong button on the ‘high-tech’ coffee machine that Sam had bought and making the hot liquid teeter precariously at the rim of his cup, setting the alarm to PM instead of AM and ending up in bed until after lunch had passed, not bothering to check the expiration date on the milk before he drinking it and ending up quite ill for the better half of the week. And while Sam and Dean tried constantly to reassure him that he would learn exactly how being human worked eventually, he couldn’t help getting frustrated. The frustration often led to minor bouts of depression, fleeting things that were often overshadowed by something else and pushed to the side within a few hours, but still, enough for Castiel to question what he was worth to the Winchesters. Because if he’d learned _anything,_ it was that you couldn’t just _be_ a Winchester; you had to earn the title. And despite the good he’d done in the past, the weight of the bad was far too overwhelming to ignore.

 

Cas looked around the room and sighed, the thought sitting heavily at the bottom of his stomach. All three of them had gone to Mississippi for the weekend, following a lead on a vengeful spirit that was haunting one of the houses in the town. The three days had consisted mostly of research (‘the source of every hunter’s boredom’, Dean had said) before they went to the graveyard. From there, it was salt, burn and run, the almost-flawless execution hindered by a minor interruption from the spirit itself near the end, and then they were back on the road to Kansas. Both brothers had gone straight into their rooms for some well-deserved rest as soon as the door of the bunker closed behind them, leaving Cas to flounder around awkwardly before deciding to just seek refuge in the enormous library right down the hall – which is where he was still.

 

The utter silence of the room was comforting, in an ominous way. He took a deep breath and burrowed further into the armchair he was sitting on, eyes drifting shut before –

 

“Cas..?” A disgruntled voice came from the doorway.

 

The man in question forced his eyes open, the burning sensation distracting him for a moment before he turned to face the blurry figure of Dean behind him. His green eyes were hazy with sleep, indicating that he’d woken up to get something and got distracted by the lights in the library. Unless it was Cas that had woken him up with the brash, raucous sounds of his absolute silence.

 

“Hello, Dean.” He intoned softly, not wanting to speak any louder than was necessary. The high ceilings in the room amplified even the quietest of noises.

 

“Cas, what’re you doin’ up? It’s like… quarter to _ass_ in the morning, man.”

 

Castiel chuckled to himself, amused at the almost-offended look on his friend’s face. “It is nothing, Dean. Please feel free to go back to sleep. I know that you need your ‘four hours’ every night. I apologize if I woke you.” The words were spoken earnestly, but even tired as he was, Dean could see the fatigue and despondency clouding the other’s normally bright eyes. He ventured a few steps from the threshold, closer to Cas.

 

“Hey, you need those four hours too now, Cas. You don’t got that robot mojo anymore.” He meant it in the most affectionate way, but still Cas’ shoulders stiffened. He heard nothing except how he was even more useless now to the Winchester’s than he had been before. A palpable tension flooded the room, filling the cracks in the floorboards and the spaces between the bookshelves, the sudden change of mood making Dean’s brows furrow. “Somethin’ wrong?”

 

The ex-angel’s small smile quickly turned lethargic. “Nothing is wrong, Dean. Please; you should rest.” He said in an attempt to be firm and make the other man leave. He didn’t need to divest his feelings of self-doubt in Dean; he already had enough on his plate as it was… But on the contrary, he felt as though if he didn’t unload the emotions on _someone,_ they would suffocate him slowly until all that was left was a cold corpse.

 

“ _Cas_.” Dean continued to walk forward until he was standing just beside the armchair. “C’mon, man. I know when you’re lying to me. Just tell me what’s wrong.” He sounded vaguely uncomfortable, which was understandable given how tenuous the relationship between Dean and any kind of outward expression of emotion was. But still, Cas appreciated the sentiment, and in turn offered the hunter a tiny smile.

 

“It’s really nothing – “ He started, halting briefly when Dean’s unimpressed gaze met his. “It _is_ nothing. Really. It’s just… I have been alive for many millennia, Dean. And I thought that I knew what being a human meant. But I have found, in the last few months, that I was not prepared for any of it. And I do not, in fact, know _anything_ about what it means – _truly_ – to lead a mortal life.” Dean was looking at him now, green eyes glimmering with apprehension. “I feel uncomfortable in my own body. My skin itches and my eyes hurt. I am unfamiliar with natural survival instincts and often forget to eat. Or sleep. Things that _should_ come easily to me are now ten times as hard as they once were.”

 

Cas looked down at his hands. They were trembling. Dean, still, said nothing.

 

“The worst part though, I believe, is the doubt. Doubt in the trust I put in material objects, doubt in others, doubt in _God_.” That one was said with a certain amount of incredulity. “But mostly… Doubt in myself. …And doubt in what I can do, what I’m worth.”

 

For a moment, it was quiet again. Like it had been before Dean came. He cast his blue eyes across the room and settled on a scuffed wooden chair in a dark corner. It was dark cedar, the color similar enough to the other chairs, the ones that were actually placed near the coffee table, but still different enough to be noticeable. The soft curves of its legs and the sumptuous appearance of its fabric led Cas to believe that it had once been magnificent, left now to collect dust where no one could see it and seemingly serving no purpose. And he couldn’t help but think, in a sad corner of his mind, that this chair reminded him terribly of himself.

 

A warm hand landed gently on his shoulder, exerting barely enough pressure for him to know it was there.  Castiel didn’t turn his head.

 

“Listen, Cas. I know that we aren’t always that… open about our _feelings._ And maybe if we’d been brought up differently, that wouldn’t be the case. But if my dad taught us one thing right, that’s that family’s the most important thing in the world… But family don’t always mean blood. And it certainly don’t mean that anyone can just come and declare themselves family and that’s that. That’s not what family is. Family means that we protect our own. We stick by each other, even when we do some spectacular shit.” And Dean chuckles quietly, no doubt thinking about everything they’d gone through together. “Family is forgiveness, and protection, and… love. But family is _not_ exploitation. …Sammy had powers once too, y’know, and they were pretty useful in a fight. But he lost ‘em. And let me tell you, Cas, I slept better at night knowing that. Even though he’d lost something that could’ve been a huge help to us… And he was plain old Sam again, no powers. Didn’t mean he was useless in a fight. Didn’t mean he was useless, period.”

 

Cas felt traitorous moisture gather in his eyes, and he studiously avoided glancing up at the man sitting on the armrest of his chair, knowing that if he did, the tears would spill.

 

“All I’m sayin’, Cas, is that it don’t matter that you lost you angel mojo. If that’s what you were worried about. ‘Cause you know what? That’s not the reason we keep you around, man. Sure, you’re about as nerdy as an ‘angel of the Lord’ can get, and you never change your clothes – well, you never used to change your clothes – and you don’t understand some of the most _basic_ pop culture references, but…” Dean clapped a hand over the shoulder furthest from him. “You’re family.”

 

And if Cas didn’t reply, well that’s okay. Dean wasn’t really expecting him to in the first place. He slapped him once on the back and then left the room, his eyes burning from the lack of sleep, and resolved to not wake up until well past noon. He walked down the hall and to his bedroom, collapsing immediately into the bed and losing himself in dreamland.

 

Castiel, on the other hand, hadn’t moved an inch. For a few minutes, his gaze was planted firmly on the ground before him, but after a while he blinked and looked up, across the room. And something possessed him to push himself up and walk all the way over to a dark corner, pulling out the chair he’d seen earlier. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t nearly as dusty as he thought. Maybe a little scuffed up, not the sturdiest, but otherwise fine. He sat down in it and smiled, ignoring the slight wobble.

 

Maybe you didn’t have to be extravagant to be useful. And maybe, he thought, glancing down at the plush cushions of the chair and knowing inside that he’d be spending a lot of time there, maybe you didn’t have to be useful to be loved.


End file.
